Feb 11 (Aljazeera/GNA) – Rescue teams in Turkey have pulled to safety a family of five who survived inside their collapsed home for five days.
Rescuers first extricated mother and daughter Havva and Fatmagul Aslan from among a mound of debris in the town of Nurdag, in Gaziantep province, HaberTurk reported.
The teams later reached the father, Hasan Aslan, but he insisted that his other daughter, Zeynep, and son Saltik Bugra be saved first.
As the father was brought out, rescuers cheered and chanted “God is Great!”
The dramatic rescue after 129 hours brings to at least nine the number of people rescued Saturday, despite diminishing hopes amid freezing temperatures.
Death toll rises above 25,000 in Turkey, Syria quake: officials
Turkey’s president has raised the total death toll from Monday’s earthquakes, bringing the total confirmed dead in Turkey and Syria above 25,000.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that the number of those killed in the quakes in Turkey had reached 21,848.
German rescue, aid groups suspend operations in Hatay
Germany’s Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) and the aid organisation ISAR Germany are suspending their rescue work in Turkey’s Hatay province due to security concerns.
The organisations said on Saturday the safety situation had worsened on Saturday. While their teams remained at a joint base camp in the town of Kirikhan for now, if there was a concrete indication that someone could be rescued alive they would still go to the scene, THW spokeswoman Katharina Garrecht told the dpa news agency.
THW and ISAR attributed the tense situation to, among other things, “the shortage of food and the problematic water supply in the earthquake area”.
ISAR director of operations Steven Bayer said, “It can be seen that grief is slowly giving way to anger.”
GNA/Credit: Aljazeera